Barbara Frank

I’ve written before that homeschooled kids tackle adult life with great gusto. At least that’s been my experience. My adult kids have eagerly embraced their schooling and/or work. In today’s world, that means lots of work hours and steady commitment to the job.

My son and his wife both have jobs that they love and in which they’re successful. Work takes up enough of their lives that they have to commit to spending time together. It doesn’t just happen. This is a lesson we all learn sooner or later, but they’re learning it right now; so far they appear to be keeping up with the balancing act.

But at some point they’re going to want children, and that’s when the balancing act becomes more complex. Men in particular feel the need to excel at their jobs in order to feed, clothe and shelter their growing families. But sometimes they can become so involved with their jobs that work takes priority over their families, and they can’t see it. » Read the rest of this entry «

Seven years ago, Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers was first published. Since then, I’ve gotten many email messages from readers who used the curriculum with their kids and were pleased with it.

Sadly, I’ve also been asked why I chose to include girls in my target audience for the book.

Now, I realize that many homeschoolers are even more conservative than I am, enough so that they plan to keep their daughters at home until and unless they marry. But to keep them in the dark about financial matters seems so misguided to me. » Read the rest of this entry «

Twenty years ago, British journalist Valerie Grove decided to interview women who “had it all” for at least 25 years. She defined having it all as:

“…they had to have been married for more than 25 years and have had three or more children, as well as a brilliant career.”

She turned her findings into a book, The Compleat Woman: Marriage, Motherhood, Career – Can She Have It All? Her conclusion was that it was very rare for a woman to be able to successfully juggle a husband, children and successful career.

Now, a British newspaper has marked the twentieth anniversary of the book’s publication by going back and interviewing some of the women whose lives were chronicled in it to see if they think it’s gotten any easier to “have it all.” The very interesting (and lengthy) article is worth reading, but if you’re pressed for time, I’d like to share a couple of key points these women now make, as they look back on their lives from the vantage point of old age. » Read the rest of this entry «

So far we’ve covered four school supplies every homeschooling parent should have:

Patience

Thick skin

Sense of humor

Creativity

The fifth must-have school supply is something you might not have thought of, but having it is what will carry you through the hard times, the frustrating times and the miserable times (yes, you will have bad times occasionally.) It is a sense of purpose.

Do you know why you’re homeschooling? Is it because you feel called to do it? Or perhaps you saw your child suffering in public school and you decided no one will ever hurt your child in a learning environment again?

Maybe you feel that it’s your duty as a parent, or a patriot (distrust of the liberal agenda in public schools is high these days). Or it’s possible you see homeschooling as the logical extension of parenting, because you realize that parenting doesn’t stop at age six, or four, or whatever the legal age for starting school is in your state.

The important thing is that you have a sense of purpose. Once in a while I run into someone who’s homeschooling because their spouse pressured them into it, or because their best friend is homeschooling and they decided on a whim to do it, too. Those are the people who end up putting their kids in school sooner or later.

A clear sense of purpose will keep you going even when the kids are cranky, and your mother tells you your stress level would shrink if you would just put those kids in school, and your husband complains that his feet are sticking to the kitchen floor, again. Homeschooling ain’t for wimps, but with a strong sense of purpose, you can keep going no matter what so that your children and you benefit from the many blessings of homeschooling.

One of the most important school supplies for homeschooling parents is creativity. Many people believe they are not creative, but often that’s because their creative selves were snuffed out by institutional schooling and, later, a business world that claims to prefer creative minds but actually finds conformism much easier to handle.

Open your mind: visit other homeschooling parents’ blogs and see what they’ve been up to lately. Take lots of trips with your children to museums and zoos. Paint and draw with your kids. (My son loves when we draw together. We’ve been doing it for so long that it’s just part of our lives now.)

A heightened sense of creativity will help you make changes where needed. You won’t fear dumping a book or curriculum for something new; in fact, if you let it, your sense of creativity will help you put together an eclectic curriculum tailored specifically to each of your children. Feed your sense of creativity and it will serve you well.

Tomorrow: #5

The third must-have school supply for homeschooling parents is a sense of humor. There will be times when the toilet backs up while you’re in the middle of explaining how fractions work, the doorbell rings while you’re up to your elbows in papier-mâché and the baby spits up all over your daughter’s favorite doll, leaving both children in tears. There’s even a good chance these things could happen all on the same day. If you have a choice, choose laughter.

Tomorrow: #4

Another must-have school supply for homeschooling parents is a thick skin. People are going to question your decision to homeschool your children. They’re going to ask whether you have a teaching certificate, as if knowing techniques for handling a roomful of children you’ve never met before has anything at all to do with teaching your own child, whom you know far better than anyone else does except your spouse.

They’re going to ask how your child will ever have friends, and they may even ask your child that question directly. That requires you to have an extra thick skin, because we parents have real issues with people directing nosy and misguided questions at our kids.

The questions and comments may slow down as your children get older and it becomes apparent that homeschooling is working, but they won’t ever go away, because there will always be people who cannot get past their reliance on authority figures and institutions. So start toughening up now.

Tomorrow: #3

While shopping today, I was amazed at the variety of school supplies that are on sale.

When I was a kid, we only needed pencils, a ruler, some crayons and (once we hit fifth grade) notebook paper. Today, schools issue long lists of supplies that include enough inventory to start your own school.

Those of us who do have our own school, at home, find that there are certain supplies we want our kids to have. For instance, I always made sure to keep a stash of notebook paper, pencils and crayons on hand, plus a wide assortment of art supplies.

We homeschooling parents vary in the supplies we think our kids need to have. But we spend less time, I would guess, thinking about the supplies we need to have in order to homeschool our kids.

If I had to pick five school supplies every homeschooling parent should have, I would start the list by saying that a homeschooling parent has to have a good supply of patience.

It takes patience to wait for children to absorb concepts. It takes patience to answer the same question over and over. It takes patience to wait for signs of readiness before introducing a concept or skill you’re dying to see your child master (a good example of this is reading.)

Of course, you don’t start out homeschooling with all the patience you need. It’s something you develop over the years (although after raising a child from infancy, you’ve probably got a good head start.) But the saying “patience is a virtue” was never truer than in the case of homeschooling.

School supply #2

School supply #3

School supply #4

School supply #5

Are you intimidated by the thought of homeschooling your kids all the way through high school? I was.

Do you worry that you’re not up to the challenge of homeschooling your teens? I did.

Do you wonder what it’s like, living with teenagers every day? I was pretty curious about that myself.

I never thought I’d homeschool my children all the way through high school. I wasn’t even sure I could do it. But I did, and I’m sure glad I did. But it wasn’t always easy, and there were times when I needed some encouragement.

You can have that encouragement, and get a little peek into the world of homeschooling teenagers in the process, with “Homeschooling Your Teenagers.” It’s an eBook with eleven articles* from the archives of “The Imperfect Homeschooler.” These articles are no longer available online….but you can have them for yourself now in Amazon Kindle eBook format for only 99 cents (reg. $7.95) by clicking here.

*Plus, there’s a list of links to online resources that will help you homeschool your teen for free!

Ten years ago next month, we went on our last big family vacation.

At that time, my kids were 7, 9, 15 and 16. The older kids were already so busy that we knew it would only get harder to fit in a big vacation before they went off to college or moved out on their own. It was a bittersweet feeling, knowing this would probably be our last family trip with all four kids together.

» Read the rest of this entry «

In the movie “Wall-E,” people have become tubs of lard who sit in the futuristic equivalent of wheelchairs, being entertained while they gulp soda and stuff their faces with food.

This article about the increasing number of children (not just in the U.S., but around the world) who spend hours indoors eating in front of mindless entertainment offers a depiction that’s uncomfortably similar to the people in “Wall-E.”

Children need healthy food, exercise in the fresh air and parents who will make sure they get both. Homeschooling is a lifestyle that makes this particularly easy. But it requires parents who will chase the kids away from the refrigerator and the big screen and out into the yard.

When I was a kid, we played freely in our neighborhood every day after school. Today we walked to the park with our son and only saw two kids outside. Two! In a city with over 40,000 people, I’d expect to see more than two kids out after school on one of the first warm afternoons of spring.

Sometimes I think our affluence came with too high of a price. What do you think?

Last week, I posted about the questions I’ve been getting lately having to do with surviving the homeschooling life. It occurs to me now that while I addressed some difficulties that come with homeschooling and how to handle them, I should also remind those newer to homeschooling of all the advantages of this lifestyle.

» Read the rest of this entry «

Every so often there’s a common thread in the questions I receive from homeschool moms.

That thread might be about getting teens to follow through on assignments, or how to handle friends and relatives opposed to homeschooling, or (in the most recent bunch) how to juggle homeschooling, homemaking and preschoolers without losing your mind.

Maybe the popularity of this latest topic stems from the fact that it’s February and everyone’s been cooped up indoors for months and they’re getting tired of it. But juggling the kids, the house and homeschooling can be stressful; how well I know that from my own experience.

» Read the rest of this entry «

If the name “Jaycee Dugard” sounds familiar to you, it’s because it was all over the news a while back when Jaycee was found and rescued 18 years after being kidnapped when she was 11 years old.

Her kidnapper, a convicted sex offender, held her hostage all those years and also fathered two children by her. They are now 11 and 15 years old; they grew up believing Jaycee was their sister, not knowing she was actually their mother.

But according to the British press, she was also their teacher:

Jaycee’s strength and determination to care for her daughters as best she could has filled the family with admiration.

Both Angel and Starlit appear to have been educated solely by their mother – who herself never made it past the fifth grade.

Yet recent tests show Angel, 15, functioning close to the level of a high school senior – that is, a higher level than Jaycee was at when she was abducted.

Both girls are now receiving tutoring at the northern California home.

Now that’s what I call successfully homeschooling in adverse conditions, and it’s just more proof that homeschooling works.

President Obama recommends  shorter summer vacations for U.S. schoolchildren so they can attend school for more days than they do already, because he believes that they’re at a disadvantage compared to students in other countries.

His Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, says more school hours will “even the playing field” when it comes to comparing our schoolchildren to those in the rest of the world.

Meanwhile, homeschoolers excel with far fewer hours of instruction than most public schoolchildren receive. So is it really more hours of instruction that schoolchildren need?

First off, President Obama’s assertion appears to be inaccurate:

Obama and Duncan say kids in the United States need more school because kids in other nations have more school.

“Young people in other countries are going to school 25, 30 percent longer than our students here,” Duncan told the AP. “I want to just level the playing field.”

While it is true that kids in many other countries have more school days, it’s not true they all spend more time in school.

Kids in the U.S. spend more hours in school (1,146 instructional hours per year) than do kids in the Asian countries that persistently outscore the U.S. on math and science tests – Singapore (903), Taiwan (1,050), Japan (1,005) and Hong Kong (1,013). That is despite the fact that Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong have longer school years (190 to 201 days) than does the U.S. (180 days).

Apparently children in the countries that outscore ours in math and science attend school for more days per year but fewer hours per year. So the suggestion by Obama and Duncan that a longer school day results in “gains” (test scores, which do not necessarily equal learning) is not backed up by the foreign countries whose kids outscore ours. They actually have shorter school days.

But if you read the entire article, you find that merely educating kids isn’t really the point anyway. Here are your clues:

The president, who has a sixth-grader and a third-grader, wants schools to add time to classes, to stay open late and to let kids in on weekends so they have a safe place to go.

Summer is a crucial time for kids, especially poorer kids, because poverty is linked to problems that interfere with learning, such as hunger and less involvement by their parents.

That makes poor children almost totally dependent on their learning experience at school, said Karl Alexander, a sociology professor at Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins University, home of the National Center for Summer Learning.

Aside from improving academic performance, Education Secretary Duncan has a vision of schools as the heart of the community.

“Those hours from 3 o’clock to 7 o’clock are times of high anxiety for parents,” Duncan said. “They want their children safe. Families are working one and two and three jobs now to make ends meet and to keep food on the table.”

Do you see it? What we’re talking about here goes way beyond merely educating a child. This is about raising children because their parents have been deemed unable or unwilling. This is about schools becoming publicly subsidized daycare centers for school-age children, even on the weekends.

What it’s not about is how many hours of instruction it takes to educate a child so he can beat the math and science scores of kids in other countries. Homeschoolers have already demonstrated that.